The Dominant Culture of The United States, and most of the countries on this Earth, is Capitalism. We were taught it in school, we were told it was Gawd’s Will in church, we work within it during the day, it pours out of our televisions when we come home, and the only time we can escape from it is when we are asleep.
Maybe.
Corporate Capitalism dominates our planet. We can describe it as an economic system that became dominant in the Western world following the demise of feudalism or … we can describe it as A Self-Devouring Beast. Your choice. I don’t care. Either description is accurate. All I know is it’s a Capitalist world … we just live in it.
Gore Vidal wrote in 1977, “There is only one party in the United States, the Property Party ... and it has two right wings: Republican and Democrat. Republicans are a bit stupider, more rigid, more doctrinaire in their laissez-faire capitalism than the Democrats, who are cuter, prettier ... and more willing than the Republicans to make small adjustments when the poor, the black, the anti-imperialists get out of hand. But, essentially, there is no difference between the two parties.”
Here’s one of my favorite George Carlin rants, “Now, there's one thing you might have noticed I don't complain about: politicians. Everybody complains about politicians. Everybody says they suck. Well, where do people think these politicians come from? They don't fall out of the sky. They don't pass through a membrane from another reality. They come from American parents and American families, American homes, American schools, American churches, American businesses and American universities, and they are elected by American citizens. This is the best we can do folks. This is what we have to offer. It's what our system produces: Garbage in, garbage out.”
A Capitalist system produces more Capitalists. Garbage in, garbage out.
The 434 members of the U.S. House of Representatives and 99 U.S. Senators are capitalists. The President of The United States is a capitalist. Every yahoo trying to be the Republican candidate for the presidency in 2012 is a capitalist. Go ahead. Prove it to yourself. Email your elected representative in the United States Congress and ask them if they’re a Capitalist. Everybody but Senator Bernie Sanders will say … Yes.
The Justices of The Supreme Court are nominated by the President of the United States and appointed after confirmation by the United States Senate. The nine Justices of The Supreme Court are capitalists. Big Surprise.
What the hell … I’ll throw caution to the winds and go waaaaaay out on a limb and say it looks like Capitalism is fairly well-established here.
Capitalism’s pathological pursuit of profit and power is:
a.) A neat example of alliteration and
b.) The engine of destruction killing the planet and ourselves.
Our air, water, and land is fouled because it boosts the corporate bottom line. Our food is genetically modified, grown using toxic chemicals, and then refined to the point where it has little or no nutritional value to increase profits. Our health care system is designed to make money from people’s suffering and illness. Our social safety net programs are being dismantled while trillions of taxpayer dollars are funneled to the richest people in the world. And last but not least, as Socrates said, “All wars are fought for money.”
Capitalists have corrupted our political and judicial systems, our media, and have successfully eroded the gains the labor and civil rights movements have made in this country.
Anyone who doesn’t agree with everything I’ve just written is delusional. Who else is to blame? Socialists? Commies? Muslims, Catholics, or Jews? Black or Brown people? … Martians?
From Wikipedia, “In US Criminal law, means, motive, and opportunity is a popular cultural summation of the three aspects of a crime needed to convince a jury of guilt in a criminal proceeding. Respectively, they refer to: the ability of the defendant to commit the crime (means), the reason the defendant had to commit the crime (motive), and whether or not the defendant had the chance to commit the crime (opportunity).”
Capitalists are the only group that had the means, motive, and opportunity to destroy the country.
I rest my case.
Now that that’s settled … I only have one more question:
Why do we keep voting for these people?
Seriously. Why do we get all hot and bothered about which capitalist gets elected to whatever office? What if Crazy Michelle Bachman and Seriously Deranged Rick Santorum become our next president and vice president? Pick any of the Looney Tunes and imagine them goofing around in the Oval Office. Is Rick Perry with his coloring books and chocolate milk a scarier notion than Willard Romney modeling suits during cabinet meetings? Does it make you feel better to visualize four more years of Barack Obama at the helm of state?
Why? Capitalism reigns regardless … or should I say Insanity Rules.
Here’s what our current Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta said about the ceremonial winding down of the war in Iraq, “To be sure, the cost was high -- in blood and treasure for the United States and also for the Iraqi people, but those lives have not been lost in vain.”
The fighting resulted, Panetta said, in a "free and sovereign Iraq."
President Obama hailed the "extraordinary achievement" of the military and said they were leaving with "heads held high". He said, “Everything that American troops have done in Iraq, all the fighting and dying, bleeding and building, training and partnering, has led us to this moment of success.”
Would we have felt worse if Republican-Capitalist John McCain said that? Or is it worse that a Democrat-Capitalist could glibly make statements that make normal people sick to the core of their being?
How to explain what Panetta and Obama said? Were they high on some strange combination of drugs that allowed them to speak lies and gibberish on camera without drooling uncontrollably? Or were they simply parroting the Psychopathic-Capitalist Party line?
When I was a kid I was told many many times that life in Communist Russia was intolerable to freedom loving people. There was only one party. You could vote, but the candidates were all members of the Communist Party. The Regime was always solidly in place regardless of who “won.”
I am not going to vote for a Capitalist in 2012. And don’t hand me any of that “Lesser of Two Evils” crap. To carefully quote George Carlin again, “Good honest hard working people continue to elect these rich (bleep)suckers who don’t give a (bleep)about them. They don’t give a (bleep) about you. They don’t give a (bleep) about you! They don’t care about you at all, at all, at all.”
I don’t care whether they’re a “moderate” capitalist or not. I don’t care if they’re short, tall, fat, crazy, stupid, black, white, Conservative, or Liberal Capitalists. I will never vote for any of them again.
It appears they don’t have my best interests at heart.
Meghann Marco, in the Field Guide to the Apocalypse, said, “Don't blame yourself. The apocalypse wasn't your fault. Actually, it was just as much your fault as it was anyone else's. Come to think of it, if you're an American, it was probably about 80-90 percent more your fault than the average human. But don't let that get you down. It wasn't exclusively your fault. Unless you're the president. Then it might be your fault. But you'll have plenty of interns to tell you that it wasn't, so you'll be fine.”
I Wish We’d Stop Doing This
